"Hallmark Hall of Fame" The Disappearance of Aimee (1976)

Director:

Anthony Harvey

Writer:

John McGreevey (writer)

TV Series:

"Hallmark Hall of Fame" (1951)

Original Air Date:

17 November 1976 (Season 26, Episode 1)

Plot:

In 1926, famous evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared for six weeks. When she surfaced, she...

Plot Keywords:

Character Name In Title | Anthology | Company Sponsor Name In Title

Cast

Faye Dunaway	...	Sister Aimee Semple McPherson
Bette Davis	...	Minnie Kennedy
James Sloyan	...	Dist. Atty. Asa Keyes
James Woods	...	Asst. Disty. Atty. Joseph Ryan
John Lehne	...	Capt. Cline
Lelia Goldoni	...	Emma Shaffer
Severn Darden	...	S.I. Gilbert
William Jordan	...	Kenneth Ormiston
Sandy Ward	...	Judge Blake
Barry Brown	...	Wallace Moore
Irby Smith	...	Benedict
Hartley Silver	...	Clerk
Rena Andrews
Lucian Benrier
Paul Feliz

David Winters	...	Jacques
Selena Royle	...	Cast Member 1951-1952

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG

Company:

Hallmark Hall of Fame Productions

Trivia:

In an interview published in the New York Times on 20 December 1993, director Anthony Harvey said that during filming of this movie, Bette Davis "absolutely took a dislike to Faye Dunaway... I would line them up for a two-shot," he said, "then look through the camera, and I couldn't see Bette." Each time, Davis had inched her chair away to evade a tete-a-tete with the younger Dunaway.

Movie Connections:

Version of Aimee Semple McPherson (2006)

Once-prestigious television movie now looks a bit under-nourished...

A bigger budget and an expanded narrative might have made "The Disappearance of Aimee" a dandy theatrical mystery. In 1926, Protestant female minister--and popular radio evangelist--Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared from the waters off a Southern California beach and remained missing for just over a month. She later turned up in Douglas, Arizona telling a wild story about being kidnapped for a $500,000 ransom. Because two men drowned in the ocean while searching for McPherson's body, an unstoppable prosecutor called her before the court, believing she was actually dallying with a married man. Faye Dunaway's lead performance is good, not great; she has a lengthy monologue in her hospital room which could be called a mini tour de force, yet her religious exaltations before her adoring believers are rote, and her relationship with her hovering mother (portrayed by Bette Davis) is sketchily drawn. This TV production, once considered eventful programming, now looks puny in scope, with an uncertain direction and variable performances. We often don't know how to take the characters, and the editing is so shapeless that the flashbacks, in particular, fail to make much of an imprint.